I’m So Mad About Trump Getting Elected, I’m Going to Do Exactly the Same Stuff, Only More So

I’m done whining and handwringing about President-Elect Trump. It’s time to take ACTION to defeat him in 2020, by which I mean, doing the exact same stuff I’ve been doing for the last eighteen months, but, like, way more of it.

Instead of staying in my comfy Facebook echo chamber, I’m gonna un-mute those three conservative dudes I know. This way, I can see them post memes from CuckWatch_Nation with PhotoShopped Benghazi ghosts sniping Colin Kaepernick’s knee. I’ll then respond by typing out a five-paragraph comment, then control-A control-X delete the comment before posting it, but save it on my clipboard in case I get drunk enough later to follow through. I’ll then lay in bed and stew about it for two hours and catch myself saying stuff out loud to no one. Engaging with these other viewpoints is critical.

I will continue to watch Samantha Bee and John Oliver clips, but now I’ll be gritting my teeth and shaking my head in agreeing disgust the whole time, even during the joke parts. I probably won’t post many (cause they’re already everywhere) but I will make it a point to like them on the wall of each individual friend who posts them. We all gotta put in the effort.

Whenever someone tweets “Read this whole Twitter thread NOW,” you better believe I’m gonna scroll through those numbered tweets until I get the gist of it and fave a couple. I won’t retweet the thread cause I don’t want my feed to just be joyless political stuff (and I don’t want to get into any dumb Twitter arguments), but I will paraphrase the thread in a future conversation with friends who already saw it and we’ll all be like “yeah.”

When someone says something I disagree with at the Thanksgiving table, instead of remaining silent, I’m gonna ENGAGETHEM and learn to LISTEN. Then, after listening for a couple dozen more seconds, declare “Jesus Christ can we PLEASE talk about anything else??” I’ll then change the subject, knowing that I’ve planted the seed for that person to consider my side of this argument on their own at a later date. We can’t just keep turning a blind eye to these conversations because they’re “uncomfortable.”

When I see someone post a “long read, but worth it” article from the Atlantic or the Economist, you have my solemn promise that I will copy-paste that link into my phone’s Notepad then read it over the course of my next seven shits.

I will vigilantly remind my friends to VOTEVOTEVOTE! That way, if they haven’t voted that day and logged on to Facebook right as my post goes up, they’ll be like “oh crap, thanks dude” and go out and vote. Voting is the essential lifeblood of our democracy’s circulatory system, I’ll remind everyone uncontroversially.

I’m gonna stop comparing serious political stuff to Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, and instead take the time to ridicule the people doing that.

I don’t really have time to go to protests right now, but if you post a video of yourself protesting, I promise I’ll try to regram it if I can get my regramming thing working again (it’s been weird since I updated the OS). But I WILL volunteer myself when it’s closer to the next election, presuming I don’t have the same amount of consistent minor conflicts two years from now that I currently do, and have always had.

And, if all else fails, I’ll write a self-deprecating comedy piece making sure everyone knows I’m extremely aware of my own inaction and its subsequent pseudo-complicity to unwelcome political outcomes. Hopefully it can inspire some other like-minded people to rise up and share it with the caption “Yup,” and hopefully take notice of my byline.

No more complaining. It’s time to take a good, long look in the mirror and say, “Do MORE of that, Mirror Guy.”